Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/300

 294 Southern Historical Society Papers.

' The missionary and religious publishing houses never ceased their praiseworthy labor of printing tracts and pamphlets for distribu- tion among the soldiers, but publications of a more ambitious or secular standard were very few. Now and then some adventurous firm in Richmond, or Charleston, or New Orleans, would issue a badly-printed edition of a new novel, reproduced from a copy smug- gled in ' through the lines, ' or brought by the blockade runners from Nassau. Still, even 'John Halifax, Gentleman,' and ' Les Miserables,' which first appeared in the South in this way and this dress, lost much of their attractiveness in their Confederate garb of inferior ink, bad type, and worse paper." A. C. Gordon in The. Century.

Some of the sentiments which found their expression under such circumstances are as imperishable as the human language, and will survive the brilliant exploits of war and outlive the glamour of mili- tary glory.

I need not advert to the perfect form of constitutional govern- ment, brought into being by Southern men, nor do more than refer to the Constitution framed by her statesmen, to prove their capacity for the conduct of affairs, and to disprove the charge that they aimed at the subversion of republican government.

The Confederate Government and the Confederate Constitution was an improvement in many essential particulars on the one under which they had lived, and to which they have renewed their alle- giance. In principle they are the same, but in detail they differ.

The laws passed by the Confederate Congress, composed ex- clusively of Southern men, may well challenge comparison in wis- dom, in simplicity, in sufficiency with the statutes of any country. They are matters of record, and I cannot and need not do more than refer to them to illustrate how well equipped and capable South- ern statesmen were for the successful conduct of constitutional government.

And I need only call attention to the messages of that illustrious man, the chief executive of the Confederate Government, profound in their knowledge and acquaintance with the truest science of human government, to the reports of his chief Cabinet officers, to prove how well fitted they were for the administration of a republican form of government. Nor is it needful to do more than invite criti- cism of the opinions and decisions of the judges who adorned the Confederate courts, to demonstrate their capabilities for judicial administration.